[ ABOVE: the Halloween village and orange fountains in downtown Chicago at Daley Plaza ]

Halloween for me is a fun time with lots of orange, black, and purple decorations and all the paper cutouts of pumpkins, black cats, and spooky ghosts I remember from my childhood in Cleveland. I have never been into blood and gore or the gruesome side of Halloween that a lot of people enjoy…to me Halloween is cute and sweet…or sexy, in the case of hot guys in really great shape going out as Tarzan or Dr. Manhattan or the Olympic water polo team here in Boystown…but never gross and gory with blood and guts hanging out. No thanks. Keep it sweet or sexy at Halloween, please.

I also really enjoy cooking Halloween-themed foods in October, with lots of pumpkin and purple potato dishes and different kinds of roasts where I can stuff long carrots into the pan so they cook up like creepy fingers. My boyfriend Justin supposedly hates pumpkin but will eat sweet potatoes so all Halloween I make lots of ravioli, smoothies, pie, and other treats that are supposedly sweet potato but are really made from pumpkins (which is my trick, since Justin’s never the wiser).

I just don’t have the energy or enthusiasm this year to dress up as anything for Halloween because all my time is focused on the upcoming election…but I do enjoy watching Halloween movies on Amazon Instant video or Netflix while I work. I do the little split screen so that I can have a movie playing in the upper left hand corner of my computer and leave the rest of the desktop free for work. Today, I roasted up a turkey with the purple potatoes and carrots because my friend Althea’s kids Niblet and T.J. were over while Althea and her family had some sort of church function; the kids wanted to watch some Halloween movies and Althea said I could pick out anything I thought would be appropriate for them (so long as there’s no gore, nudity, or bad words). This worked out perfectly because I don’t like movies with gore or the swearing in them anyway (and after living in Boystown for this many years, I’ve had enough nudity to last me a while so there’s no need for that in Halloween movies).

Before the kids came over today I made a list of a few options for movies I thought they would like because I was surprised I couldn’t find a good list like this online already. I searched, but everything I found was either riddled with gore or was severely dumbed-down. I figured as long as I made a list, I’d share it here to save you the trouble from having to come up with some Halloween options of your own. I also expanded things a bit to include scarier movies I think are great to watch at Halloween that are NOT appropriate for pre-teens (in my opinion), but are fun for when the kids get picked up and are on their merry way again. Like everything, YOU need to decide if your kids are old enough to watch these movies…with some being able to handle it and some 50 year olds too fragile to ever see these films.

If you have any favorites that YOU like to watch during Halloween season where you live, please add them below in comments, too. I purposefully left things at 45 and not 50 because I am sure at least five of you will think of something great that I haven’t and you can fill in the rest your own way.

Top 45 Great Movies to Watch for Halloween Season:

45. Shadow of the Vampire. A fun take on the making of the silent film Nosferatu.

44. They Live. Who would have thought the Obama presidency would have been telegraphed to us decades ago in a Rowdy Roddy Piper movie?

43. Interview with the Vampire. The gayest big budget Hollywood movie ever made. I saw it in college about two days before I realized I was gay and started dating my best friend. I also remember it for the tantrums Anne Rice threw over Tom Cruise’s casting…so much so that when the movie came out on VHS they made her film an apology to be shown before the film started, admitting she was an ass. Anne’s gone completely nuts now and posts hate-fueled diatribes on Facebook that are very pro-Obama and anti-America. It’s like the scary stories she used to write about gay vampires drove her nuts or something.

42. Cat’s Eye. Creepy story collection, including one about a little troll that bedevils Drew Barrymore.

41. Death Becomes Her. Creepy comedy, with no blood or gore but a fun take on the walking dead in Beverly Hills. I remember how amazing the effects were back at the time, too. It’s fun to look for the cameos by Greta Garbo, Elvis, Jim Morrison, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and Andy Warhol too. I like to think Whitney Houston’s at that party now, too, looking young and beautiful forever and back in rare form after drinking the magic potion. Sempre vivre!

40. The Mummy. Probably not for very little kids, but the first movie in the Mummy trilogy is a lot of fun…and I don’t think too gruesome. You can tell everything is computer generated effects. More adventure film than horror but still creepy enough for Halloween. Definitely not as scary as what’s happening in Egypt politically right now.

39. Troll. This movie is creepy, but is not scary in my opinion. It’s about a little troll that tries to take over an apartment building by turning people into fairytale characters. It’s more magical than scary…but I associate it with Halloween because one of the tee-vee stations in Cleveland back in the 80s used to show this every year in October (because they owned about 12 movies to show, I think). I like it and was surprised that Justin had never seen it.

38. Ghostbusters. Who you gonna call?

36-37. The entire Harry Potter movie franchise…but in particular The Prisoner of Azkaban or The Order of the Phoenix. I was really surprised today when I was thinking of good movies to show Niblet and T.J. that the Harry Potter series didn’t immediately jump into mind when I thought of Halloween, considering how many spooky things are in the films while being totally kid-friendly. I find the first two movies in the series difficult to watch because I’m not a big fan of director Chris Columbus and it’s jarring for me to watch Daniel Radcliffe as such a little boy after seeing him on Broadway in Equus a few years ago, where there was not much little about him. The series really kicks into gear for me with part three, The Prisoner of Azkaban and the inventive choices made by its director, Alfonso Cuaron. There’s the Knight Bus with its shrunken head dangling from the mirror, the Shrieking Shack haunted house, the Dementors, and all sorts of visual treats strewn about the Village of Hogsmeade. Part Five in the series, The Order of the Phoenix, also involves a creepy house and introduces a wide array of wicked witches and wizards that are fun to watch run amuck. You could easily watch the entire Potter series every Halloween and enjoy it all over again…but I think if your time is limited the most fun “Halloween” installments are parts Three and Five.

35. Beetlejuice. So creepy, in a fun way. Scares, but no gore. That model of the town is still one of the coolest things ever.

34. The Corpse Bride. This one’s beautiful but I can only watch it every few years. That’s how I am with a lot of Tim Burton movies, actually.

33. Nightmare Before Christmas. The exception to the rule above: it is the one Tim Burton movie that I watch every year, the night before Halloween.

32. Hocus Pocus. A fun movie with witches and things that kids like and I can sit through repeatedly and always find something funny in the performances of Kathy Nijimi, Bette Midler, and Matthew Broderick’s beard.

31. Alvin & the Chipmunks Meet the Wolfman. He’s going to be mad at me when I tell you this, but my boyfriend Justin LOVES this movie. It must have come out when he was still a kid. If I have it on when Niblet and T.J. are over Justin will sit and watch it too. This is about as scary as Justin likes things to get at Halloween. The animation is surprisingly good, too.

30. Monster Squad. An 80s classic you might have never heard of…where the Universal Studios monsters all combine forces to try to take over the world and a ragtag groups of kids has to stop them. There is some kind of rights dispute issue with this movie because it can’t be found streaming and you have to order it on DVD, which is sad. It is totally worth buying though. They’ve been trying to remake it for years, too. It’s really quite good.

29. The Goonies. Another movie with kids on an adventure in creepy places. A classic Halloween costume in my mind is a pirate, and there are plenty of pirate-related things in this movie. It’s also fun to see a lot of stars back when they were little kids and marvel at how they turned out as adults (Josh Brolin and Martha Plimpton are still acting…Corey Feldman is Corey Feldman…a lot of the other ones faded into obscurity…Chunk became an entertainment lawyer and slimmed down, etc.).

27/28. Jumanji and Zathura. These two are linked in my mind because they are both about board games that transport you on adventures…one in the jungle and the other in space. Since Halloween is about make-believe, they fit in my mind.

26. Little Shop of Horrors. The songs keep this from being too scary. Niblet and T.J. love this movie and love singing along. In Boystown, there are bars that play songs from this movie on Showtunes Sing-A-Long Nights and alternate lyrics are substituted for some of the actually words (which is fun…but maybe not appropriate for kids).

25. Ghost. I love Whoopi Goldberg in this, Sister Act, and The Color Purple. I wish she had stuck to movies like this and never hosted The View.

24. Practical Magic. I could watch this over and over again. I just love it. And the house in this movie is my dream house that I want Justin to design for me someday.

23.Gremlins. It’s funny, but this is also one of my favorite Christmas movies…which is a Halloween/Christmas hybrid that Nightmare Before Christmas was supposed to be but I only want to watch that at Halloween, not at Christmas. Know what my FAVORITE Christmas movie of all time is, though? That’s right, Die Hard.

22. Hellboy (and Hellboy 2). Lots of monsters, but action too, which is okay. It has a very dark and foreboding Halloween vibe.

21. Elvira Mistress of the Dark. Hilarious. I watch this every year. It gets a little risqué for kids so as we move down lower on the list we’re getting into pre-teen and teen category now. When I was little Elvira’s tee-vee show used to still come on late at night in Cleveland, where she’d host bad movies and make fun of them. I thought it was so strange to see her doing these little skits before the commercial breaks and wondered for years who that woman was. And then this movie came out and of course the Internet much later…so this is a little part of my childhood that’s fun to rewatch every year. I think it’s so funny. Justin thinks I’m nuts, but I love Elvira’s bad puns and entendres.

20. Waxwork. This is the other scary movie that the guy from Gremlins was in. Lots of creepy nods to other horror movies and I love that some of the scenes are their own mini-movies taking place within the bigger story. Great for short attention spans or for when I have this on and am being interrupted a lot I can pause it and not feel I’m missing much.

19. Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Gorgeous costumes and sets. This movie still looks like it cost hundreds of millions of dollars and is so creepy to watch late at night. It drags a little in parts but I love Winona Ryder in it.

18. The Haunting. Another really gorgeous movie, made right when CGI was starting to be a big deal…so the seams show a little today. It’s very creepy and effective, though…a great haunted house movie.

17. Carrie. 70s horror films were the best…and this is just about the only Stephen King adaptation I enjoyed besides Misery (which is a winter, not Halloween, movie to me).

16. Scream. In the days before the Internet, I was blown away by this movie. I did not think it would be anything special and ended up loving how shocking it was that it killed a big star right away. The sequels were all pretty lame, but this first one was great.

15. Poltergeist. Holds up really well. The movie is scary to this day, and the performances are all great. I remember being too little to see this one in the theaters when it first came out but my parents telling me about it (dumbing it down so it wouldn’t scare me too much). Years later I saw it and was freaked out by the clown doll…and then later freaked out even more by the various tragedies that hit the cast (Heather O’Rourke, Dominque Dunne). And now, in 2012, my boyfriend’s mother’s name is CarolAnne and she sits in front of the tee-vee and soaks up negative energy that she uses to scare her son over the telephone from Arkansas…so I get to have a live version of this movie playing all the time here in Chicago. Yippee!

14. Munger Road. So scary. Not a drop of blood to be seen. Had me on the edge of the couch with suspense. Based on a sort of true story here in Chicagoland.

13. Trick’r Treat. Great anthology of Halloween stories.

12. Bait. Combine Jaws, Deep Blue Sea, and The Mist and this is what you get. Great Australian shark movie in a grocery store. Just ignore some cheesy effects.

11. The Mist. This movie fascinates me. I’ve seen it four times and will watch it again tonight because making this list made me remember I wanted to see it again. The creatures that come out of the mist from an alternate dimension are so creepy and surreal. It boggles my mind. And the ending. The tragic ending. It just leaves me numb because I don’t know what I would have done in the character’s place.

10. Monkey Shines. A killer monkey! A man in wheelchair that the monkey torments! Super creepy!

9. Vacancy. This movie is so creepy because during the 2008 campaign I traveled a lot and stayed in many motels. I also used to work in hotels in college and would go to these seminars for security managers and learn about all the bad things that people do to each other in hotels. A movie like this is scarier than The Shining because it could actually happen somewhere.

8. The Strangers. Another one that could actually happen. Which makes it scarier than monster movies to me.

7. The Cabin in the Woods. This was like a big-budget episode of Buffy or Angel, with all sorts of nods to famous horror movies. There is blood and gore, but it’s not too much.

6. Hellbent. This is the only gay horror movie I’m aware of that’s any good. It’s not soft-corn porn either, like Dante’s Cove. It’s a real movie that just happens to be set in Halloween in West Hollywood. Never thought in a million years it would be good, but it actually is.

5. Seven. When I was in college I saw this movie with a group of friends that included Jane, the most devilish prankster I’ve ever known. Jane arrange to have some friends of hers hide in the woods late at night after we’d get out of this movie. I still don’t know how she pulled this off, but that was Jane for you. On the way back from the theater, Jane insisted we take a short cut from the bus stop back to campus instead of taking a cab like we’d usually do…and she got us to listen to her. The short cut of course went through the woods…where Jane had people waiting to jump out at us. “Fooled you! Fooled you! Fooled you!” Jane shouted. “Now you will never forget the scary movie we saw! Ha ha ha ha!”. I still love that Jane thought having people lurk in the woods to jump out and scare her friends after they just saw Seven was “fooling us”…but how awesome was it to have someone in my life who’d go to that much trouble to scare me with an elaborate college prank. Jane, if you remember, was murdered on 9/11 by Muslims in her office building in New York. I miss her every day, but especially around Halloween because her pranks were EPIC.

4. The Amityville Horror (one with Ryan Reynolds rocking an awesome 70s-homage beard). I admit it. Ryan Reynolds is just incredibly sexy in this. I have no idea what happens in the movie but he’s bearded and shirtless and looks like a lumberjack for almost the entirety of it. It is worth renting for that reason alone.

3. The Thing. When I was a kid, I remember seeing Wilford Brimley as a kindly old grandpa or the guy selling oatmeal on the tee-vee. In this he’s all kinds of scary and crazy. I saw this movie for the first time about five years ago and despite it being set in Antarctica with snow all around it’s a scary, Halloween-worthy movie to me. CREEPY.

2. Alien. Another movie that technically has nothing to do with Halloween but is scary and suspenseful even though I know what’s going to happen.I also love that here in Chicago someone turned it into a musical featuring the music from Queen…as in “Alien Queen”. It plays sometimes at Halloween, in years that the same theater group is not doing “The Carpenters Halloween”, with music from The Carpenters driving along a parody of Halloween.

1. Dawn of the Dead. I saw this in theaters on a date with a guy who used to be a Marine. His name was Rob, and he was tough…but he whimpered like a little school girl all through this. It was crazy. I think it’s the creepiest and scariest movie I ever saw. It also makes me think of politics because the zombies remind me of Occupy Wall Street wanting to take over and devour everything that other people worked for. I swear, the zombie hordes remind me of Obama voters and always will.

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And don’t forget the tee-vee shows that are fun to watch again at Halloween as well:

10. The Scooby Doo cartoons that featured special guests like The Addams Family, Sandy Duncan, Phyllis Diller, etc.

9. Pushing Daisies.

8. The Munsters.

7. Six Feet Under.

6. Dead Like Me.

5. Halloween episode of Roseanne

4. Select episodes of Friday the 13th: the Series (NOT the movies…the TV show in the 80s starring Robey)

Gay conservative political analyst, essayist, author and radio and TV commentator on politics, pop culture, LGBTQ issues, and current events. To email Kevin directly with a comment or complaint about this or any article, do so at: HillBuzz@gmail.com

96 Comments

Regarding Anne Rice: ” It’s like the scary stories she used to write about gay vampires drove her nuts or something.”

You know, back in the 80’s when dh and I were reading her books, I remember saying that I really enjoyed the horror-ness of the books, but the author must be one really messed up person. Now so much later, I wonder whether there was some bonafide demonic influence or something working on her. Scary on a whole other level …

Thanks for this list, there are some things on there I have never heard of and we just subbed to Amazon, so I’ll check them out

A lot of the movies on here are FREE, too, if you are an Amazon subscriber. I tried to include as many of those as possible. By “subscriber” I mean a “PRIME” member.

That’s the free shipping/free movies deal they have for like $75/year. I love it. I resisted for about three years before finally buying a Prime membership last fall. It’s time to renew next month I think and I will do it. I easily save the $75 in shipping and the free movies on Prime instant video. It’s well worth the $75 for me.

I love being able to watch practically anything I want on Amazon for like $2 or $3 a movie and never any late fees because I don’t have to return anything. I always racked up a good $10 in late fees because I am bad at remembering to do things on specific days.

I love “Prime” too. The great thing about it is that I was able to put my Mom on my membership and she buys EVERYTHING from Amazon now that the shipping is free and fast.

Worth every penny!

I love the old Monster movies, particularly “The Bride of Frankenstein” which really freaked me out when I was a kid. Also, all of those Vincent Price and Christopher Lee movies from the 60s and 70s. Very dated in some ways, but still scary and fun.

I loved Fright Night! Still do. How can you not love something with Roddy McDowell and Chris Sarandon in it? Amanda Bearse was totally miscast as the girlfriend in that though. She was way too old to be the love interest for a young, cute, William Ragsdale.

As long as we’re going with the late 80s/early 90s vibe, The Lost Boys was one of my favorite vampire movies. My friends and I all had a HUGE crush on Kiefer Sutherland.

Looking back, I can’t believe I also liked the Hellraiser movies. I just don’t have the stomach for that stuff anymore. My kids are pretty little, so “Spookly The Square Pumpkin” is about as scary as we’ve gotten lately. The Girl Wonder liked Lord Of The Rings, though, so she could probably handle Beetlejuice or some of the tamer movies from the list.

My BiT (Buffy-in-Training) is 10, and she liked LoTR a lot, so I started showing her some episodes of Buffy. The 2nd season Halloween one is pretty good, and short on violence, and for young teens “Hush” is a great episode. (of course, this is all individual for kids, as I’ve discovered)

Also, Dr. Who has a couple scary episodes, but my favorite and probably the most kid-friendly one is “Blink” totally scary, no violence, but you’re on the edge of your seat the whole time. BiT loved it when she was 9.

And the super old-school scary movies are great. My favorite was Phantom of the Opera, the black-and-white version.

I’m a big scardy cat, I cannot watch any of them, even that disney movie, I forget the name, 3 witches, bette midler, sarah jessica parker (ot, what’s up with 2 first names) and I forget the 3rd actress playing a witch… well they’re witches from long ago and come into present day. Its supposed to be a cute movie, can’t watch that either.

but I buy lots of candy for my neighbor’s kids, I don’t have kids yet, so I make cookies etc for my neighbor’s kids and my friend’s kids…

I keep seeing ads for this movie called “paranormal activity”, I have no clue what’s it about, it just looks like a home movie, my bf said its supposed to be scary. Its a huge hit apparently. Of course I won’t find out, as I will never watch it.

Yeah, all the “Paranormal” movies (3 so far) have been frightening…They are realistic, done in a “Blair Witch”-type of format, with the action slowly building up to bad news at the end for the characters…

Every year around Halloween ABC Family channel runs all of the Harry Potter movies. And every year as part of its 25 Days of Christmas, ABC Family runs the Harry Potter movies. I find it endlessly fascinating that Harry Potter joins The Nightmare Before Christmas as the only movies that can double as both Halloween and Christmas.

And for my contributions, these are more geared to the under-10 crowd than pre-teen, as this is Disney-heavy, but when I was that age I always enjoyed:

1. The Halloween that Almost Wasn’t – Late 70s/Early 80s, excessively cheesy, was a made-for-TV special, it’s only 30 minutes

4. Return to Oz – I still enjoy this, much more in keeping with the actual themes of the Oz books

Back in the late 80s all four would air every October on the Disney Channel. I don’t think the first three are available on Netflix or Amazon Instant, but some intrepid individuals have posted them to Youtube.

I really like the classics. When TCM shows all the old classics (Wolfman, Frankenstein, the Mummy, Dracula, etc.), there I am with a big bowl of popcorn. I think I made it to like 2:00 a.m. one Halloween — although I can’t stand Ted Turner, TCM is a great movie channel.

Most of these are too scary for me! I, too love Practical Magic and the house in it. It has an old greenhouse attached to it, and something like a widow’s walk. And it is next to the ocean! I love that house and Sandra Bullock’s little shop in the village.

I love a bunch of those, but some are too scary for this middle-aged mama. lol

Two of our favorite fun movies around Halloween are Young Frankenstein w/ Gene Wilder (so many hilarious lines!!) and Love at First Bite w/ George Hamilton as Drac (dang, the man wears a cape well, lol). They’re both just silly fun takes on the Frankenstein and Dracula tales. Probably best for teens or older ’cause some of the humor is risque.

Oh, my. Uhm … for me, as an adult, I have to go back ever so often and watch Poltergeist: The Legacy, a tv-series that aired in the late 90’s. I have mixed feelings about this so-called horror show, because on the one hand, I met my best friend because of it; but on the other hand, what was most horrifying was how bad the writing was. I always tell people that PTL is the show that taught me how NOT to write. My judgment is, ‘okay, on a scale from Poltergeist: The Legacy to Guy Gavriel Kay, where does this fall?’ There’s no way I’d let someone under the age of twelve or thirteen watch it.

I was also greatly amused that you’ve mentioned two Duncan Regehr movies/shows in the last week, Kevin … first it was ‘The Last Days of Pompeii’ and now ‘The Monster Squad.’ I had the worst crush on him when I was a pre-teen.

Cute Halloween movies that are okay for kids: I would have to add the ‘Good Witch’ series on Lifetime, which stars Catherine Bell, Chris Potter and Catherine Disher (who was the incredibly awesome Dr. Natalie Lambert in ‘Forever Knight’). I honestly don’t watch a lot of Halloween movies, because I don’t care for the gore. There’s being scared and then there’s being nauseated.

One scary movie which has haunted me since I saw it (and this is not something I recommend for any child) is ‘The Dark,’ which stars Sean Bean. I don’t often want to hug the antagonist, but I did with ‘The Dark.’ The story is, a couple’s daughter supposedly drowns, and a few days later, a little girl appears in their home, one who closely resembles their lost child. Evidently, the new little girl returned from the Welsh underworld, Annwn … and the tagline sums up the entire story, ‘One of the living for one of the dead.’ She wants what Sarah had … a loving father. The ending haunted me for months, in part because I couldn’t make sense out of it. Sure, there’s some suspension of disbelief, but for crying out loud, don’t break the rules that you set up for yourself earlier in the movie!

I should add that I love the first two modern ‘Mummy’ movies, especially the second. (shrugs) What can I tell you, Oded Fehr as Ardeth is one of the hottest guys around, and there was a lot more of Ardeth in the second movie. I would feel comfortable with my older nieces (and youngest nephew) watching this … their little sister (who is seven), not so much, but the older kids are fifteen, fourteen, thirteen and twelve.

You know what’s funny? I saw Monster Squad when I was Gower’s age in the film…like, what, 10? And I had no concept of “gay” but I knew that kid fascinated me and I wanted him to be my friend and then move in with us. Not sure why. But I was fascinated by him and jealous my female cousin got to have a poster of him. I was so clueless.

Then I remember he got to do Circus of the Stars on the trapeze…and I was super jealous because I had always wanted to be on Circus of the Stars (my dream was to get the role of JR’s son John Ross and have that for a while just so I could be on Circus of the Stars or Battle of the Network stars in the summer).

I think I even wrote about this in school for a few assignments until the nuns told me to find better goals in life at the age of 11.

You know, it’s funny: until I was about thirty, I was never drawn to people who were younger than myself. Even now, at forty-two, it’s a rare person younger than myself who draws my attention in that manner. I was about fourteen when I saw The Monster Squad, maybe a little older, and Andre Gower is the same age as my little brother (now not so little and a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy). Huh. Just checked his imdb page, and he played Tommy on TJ Hooker. (shakes head, bemused)

Oooh, that brings back memories … Circus of the Stars and Battle of the Network Stars. That’s been airing on one of the ESPN channels for the last few months. I saw one just before I left for DragonCon last month. I would have been even more amused if it was an episode that featured Gil Gerard, since I met him at my second DragonCon.

I was a weird child … I wanted to be (at varying times) a ballerina (when I was too small to worry about being graceful), an actress, a police officer, a singer, a journalist, a psychologist. I was too klutzy to even think of being in the circus in any form, after the age of eight, even as a fantasy. (shrugs)

Can’t believe I’m not the only person who remembers Duncan Regehr! What was that ‘dungeons and dragons’-esque show he was in? It only lasted on season and he spent most of the time in a leather studded outfit with massively padded shoulders that had to be miserable to work in and probably squeaked very time he moved. I too had a horrible crush on him. He was so much more interesting that the insipid little blond guy who was the hero in that show.

We were living in Ireland when RTE picked up Wizards and Warriors. My father *hated* that show, since it came on at dinner time, and all the women in the family would immediately pick up our plates, move to the sofa, and yell at anyone who dared make a noise when Dirk Blackpool was on screen. He was definitely preferable to Prince Eric.

We always figured the scripts had been written at someone’s D&D session.

Back to Halloween movies, I’ll second Nightmare before Christmas. My elder daughter started watching it when she was about 2 (thanks to the family friend who babysat!). My personal list would probably include Van Helsing, though Hugh Jackman may be the primary reason for that. For general evil witches and magic, perhaps Stardust, though that’s one I can watch anytime.

Agree with a previous commenter on the old Universal films, and also the remake of the Wolfman. Didn’t think I’d like it, but I loved it. If it wouldn’t be considered heretical by our oldest kids, I’d say it was better than the original– more depth.

Love, love love, Shadow of the Vampire. Made oldest kids (who grew up on Scooby Doo, Universal monsters, Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein, and have read Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula series) watch it. They watched the original Noseferatu with me ( the first movie that gave me nightmares) when husband was deployed to Afghanistan and they hated it). They were flipping out during Shadow, “You said this was funny! It’s not like Ghostbusters at all! It’s horrible.” Eh, bad Mommy. I guess you need to be old and have done Cultural Studies to think it was funny.

Never saw Interview.. read the books and liked one, not so much Lestat, husband said Queen of the Damned sucked. I like evil Lestat– but that’s what happens when a writer falls in love with a character and has to rehabilitate them. I’ve done it, I know.

Would also add Addams Family to the TV list. When I was a hipster Lefty-Goth type, I preferred the Addams over the Munsters, but now that I’m an old stodgy conservative mom, like the Munsters better.

OH– would add the original Noseferatu to the list. Creepy. Nightmare inducing, even though it’s silent.

And will close with, NO ONE, NO ONE, SAYS DRACULA LIKE BELA LUGOSI… And yes it’s in caps and I’m yelling, because Bela’s Dracula, and the fight scene between Lon Chaney Jr’s Wolfman and (I think) Bela’s Frankenstein are both etched indelibly on my brain.

I said I was closing– but I would also add Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Not scary, hysterical, with A and C meeting the famous Universal Monsters that dominated the ’30s and ’40s– Frankenstein, Dracula, and Wolfman. Hilarity ensues.

Would love to see Kim Newman’s novel Anno Dracula (a retelling of the Dracula story where Dracula won) done well. But we all know what Hollywood does to good books nowadays/

Oldest Daughter, who grew up from baby age on Dracula and Wolfman, fairy tales, David Bowie in Labyrinth, and Simpsons Halloween specials (the first four were brilliant)– was scared to death of Hocus Pocus. Had nightmares for weeks about witches eating her toes.

Amityville Horror– book was creepy, movie not as much, but it did get me, at the ripe age of 12, thinking about a career in demonology. Thankfully, I went with history, almost law, then homeschooling mom. When the littlest kids are older, maybe I’ll give demonology another look. No demon is nearly as scary as our kids.

“demonology”? I don’t even know you, but I wouldn’t mess with demons. I believe in heaven and hell, and several times I read that Satan and his demons can’t hurt you unless you “invite” them into your life. Studying demonology has a conotation that you’re inviting demons into your life. Please don’t do it. Especially if you’re a loving mother. Think of your children.

I agree. For the same reason, I can’t watch movies or even paranormal shows on TV that involve demonic possession or exorcism. To me it’s not in the same sphere as vampires and werewolfs. That stuff could really happen, and does.

Salem’s Lot – our one mistake for family movie night, kids were 10, 8 & 6 — oldest went to bed with garlic on his window sill, and his 1st communion scapula around his neck. Found out years later, the middle child would imitate the vampire hiss to make her little brother do anything for her — they are now 25, 23, 21 and WILL NOT WATCH this movie.

You know how you sometimes have these fragments of memory from being VERY young?

I remember being sick with a flu/fever and being in the living room in the house I grew up in. It was all still very 70s looking but I was maybe 4 or 5 so it was probably 1980 or 1981, somewhere that range. Maybe 1982. We had a big Curtis Mathes tee-vee that probably weighed 200 pounds sitting on the floor in that 70s wood paneled room. And I remember falling in and out of sleep as my parents were sitting in chairs watching some movie that came on. I just remember seeing little kids floating up to the windows to try to get people to come outside…and then I remember seeing a very scary monster face later.

For the longest time I couldn’t figure out if I had dreamt this or if it was a movie. Turns out it was Salem’s Lot on tee-vee because many, many years later I finally saw it and remembered everything about being sick and wearing Star Wars pajamas and being under the covers on the couch while this movie was on.

Just the mention of this movie brings back crystal clear memories of the horrible scene where the little boy vampire is floating outside the window, tapping on the glass. I will probably have nightmares tonight.

Scary. With the exception of 1-10, we have almost the exact same taste in movies.

Sadly I watched Interview with a vampire when I was in my teens and the homosexual undertones went right over my head. Never figured that part out. But actually even my parents did either. I guess you have to be sensitive to that kind of thing.

Now I see it loud and clear.

Happy Halloween!

I wonder how many people are going to have costumes and decorations involving empty chairs this year.

I don’t observe Halloween at all, but I like scary comedies. My taste is for old movies, so I would select things such as Bob Hope’s 1940 “Ghost Breakers.” It features one truly spooky scene, a lot of laughs, and one memorable line about Democrats. Also, I like comedy shorts such as The Three Stooges’ “Spook Louder,” where they are caretakers in a creepy house, and The Little Rascals/Our Gang shorts, “Hide and Shriek,” wherein three of the boys end up stuck in a scary amusement park fun-house, and “The Kid From Borneo,” in which the children are chased by a wild man whom they mistake for Spanky’s Uncle George. That last one isn’t scary, but it gave me some thrills (and many laughs) when I was very small. I could go on and on, but my last suggestion is the silent movie by Laurel and Hardy, “Habeas Corpus,” which sees the pair become graverobbers.

For myself, I love The Abominable Dr. Phibes with Vincent Price. Such good campy fun. He goes on a mission to kill the doctors who failed to save his beloved wife using murder techniques themed to go with the biblical plagues visited on Egypt. Ok, so it’s not really a Halloween movie but it’s still kind of creepy and fun.

I think Vincent was also in a zombie movie that gave me nightmares as a kid. It was about a guy who was the only one still left alive and at night all the zombies would come around and call him…”Morgan! Come out!” Terrifying stuff when I was much younger.

Speaking of schlock from the 70s, the very first movie I remember being terrified by was “The Gargoyles” with Bernie Casey. I was sure that some day I too would be abducted by them and my parents would be powerless, watching as they flapped away with me in their talons.

I am a huge original Dracula Fan. My favorite part in the movie is where Renfield is drugged by Dracula and collapses, and the 3 Brides of Dracula move forward to drink his blood, and Dracula waves them away – Epic.

I was traumatized when I was 10 or so by a movie called “Killer Shrews.” For some reason they’d put this stuff on Saturday afternoons in Chicago, and I’d sit and watch it while my parents did Saturday projects, unaware that I was being scarred for life. It involves a team of scientist on an island who are doing experiment with shrews these little furry animals – and they turn into vicious wolf size monsters.

Still traumatize by Jaws….and had nightmares for years after the Birds. After we watched it on TV, my older cousin Johnny threw a pillow into our bedroom where I was spending the night with my cousin and yelled The Birds, the Birds, and we totally freaked.

After my husband watched the Shining with his college roommates, driving home he sat behind his friend in the passenger seat, rolled down his own window, reached outside and slammed the palm of his hand against the outside of the window next to his friend in the front seat. His friend hit the roof.

But the worst was when my husband and his roommate saw Jaws on opening day. They went back in to the next showing and just happened to sit right behind a massive young dude who was holding a huge tub of popcorn. When the head popped out of the sunken boat, they both grabbed the guy’s shoulders and yelled. My husband claims that the entire contents of the guy’s popcorn tub went up 5 feet in the air. The guy just sat there breathing hard for at least a minute and finally in a low gravelly voice said; “I did not need that.” After the movie he said to them: I can’t believe you did that…” They were lucky he didn’t punch them out.

In retrospect MR GiGi admits it was brutal, does not advise. He worked as a teenager in Dracula’s castle at an amusement park. His job was to scare the customers. He hasn’t changed much.

I loved Joss Whedon’s Cabin in the Woods. I thought it was a great critique of the teen slasher films, Hollywood and audiences craving gore while at the same time a love letter to the horror genre with all of its references to past horror films in the last third of the film.

I remember a stop-motion movie that aired when i was a kid, I’m 45 now. It involved your typical halloween monsters. There was a dorky guy with glasses who was tryiing to rescue this beautiful heroine. I think one of the main villians was a vamire. At the end, I think he does rescue her and he turns out to be a robot. (I think). Does anyone know what I’m talking about? I’d love to get it for my little kids.

I wish I could remember the name of this movie. I don’t think it has been on t.v. for decades.

Rakin/Bass (who did all the classic Christmas Specials) produced it and recruited Boris Karloff and Phylis Diller as voice talent. A restored/remastered version was released on DVD a couple of years back.

I hate scary movies. Heck, I don’t like being scared, which is why I don’t like Obama.

That said, I managed to sit through Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows last night with my family, and it was surprisingly entertaining. Even though it got horrible reviews, it had brilliant moments and was an excellent showcase for Burton’s infinitely jarring, but hysterical juxtapositions. Depp was his odd self, and Michelle Pfeiffer looked amazing…sort of the Marilyn Munster of the group. (I skimmed the list, so I hope I didn’t miss this.) Our kids are in their mid-late teens, so this was no problem for them.

We all loved Pushing Daisies and really wish that show had stayed on the air for longer. It was oddly sweet.

Now that I’ve done my obligatory scary movie for the year, I can go watch bad TV reruns in peace and hand out candy to the neighbor kids until this all goes away for another year.

Sleepy Hollow – Tim Burton edition… Christopher Walken as a Hessian was epic. “House” is good clean fun, and has Richard Moll (night court) and that permed guy from “The greatest American Hero,” as well as “Norm” from Cheers. (tag line from House was ‘Ding Dong, you’re dead”) Still love that movie.

Also, “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!” and my personal fave “Bruce Campbell vs the Army of Darkness.”

Also, I thought I was the only one who remembers and still loves Waxwork.

ROSEMARY’S BABY, THE EXORCIST and ARSENIC AND OLD LACE. The intro music to Rosemary’s Baby, as the camera does an aerial pan of the Dakota, is downright creepy. And who doesn’t love Ruth Roman as the witch next door? The movie is a great example of how to make a movie scary WITHOUT high-tech fx. It movie creeps me out to this day because it’s believable.

The Exorcist, just because. And Arsenic and Old Lace just for fun.

Check out the Halloween-themed movies at Angry Aliens; they’re animated and performed by bunnies in 30 seconds

The old Vincent Price/ Universal movies scared me witless back in junior high. The most frightening was “The Pit and the Pendulum”. Every year in junior high they’d show a scary movie at the end of the school year. When the Pit and Pendulum was shown, I made sure that I sat behind Cathy Jo Kouse, because she had the highest bee hive hairdo in the school. Instead of looking at the woman trapped in the iron maiden at the end of the movie, I focused on Cathy Jo’s mountain of hair. There’s a halloween movie with Vincent Price and Peter Lorre that’s a spoof, and quite enjoyable. Anybody ever seen “Comedy of Terrors?”

THIS is the scariest movie I’ve seen in a long time!! The TSA violations MUST BE STOPPED. I will not fly public airlines until out 4th Amendment rights are restored. I wrote to all three of my useless representative about this and sent the link. Perhaps at least one of their minions will get a clue. Oh, and I addressed them all by their first names.

I do the same thing to my husband in the other direction, who swears he can’t/won’t eat sweet potatoes, but does just fine when they’re in pie form–he never seems to notice the pie hue leans a bit more orange than brown in the end result!

The kids eat both, and I mostly make pumpkin (year round, it is the favorite family pie) because a yellow vegetable is a yellow vegetable after all.

When I was going into the 4th grade my mother married a man who was a funeral director and who had just bought his very own funeral home. So, not only did I have to deal with a step dad, but we moved into the funeral home.

The funeral home wasn’t really set up for a family, not the living kind anyway. I drew the short straw and my bedroom (sort of an old fashion sun porch) was over the embalming room. It had a trap door that opened into the embalming room so that the caskets could be lowered down. Sometimes caskets were parked in my room overnight. Sure they were empty, but come on, it was still a casket! I would set a Barbie on top of the casket as kind of an alarm. If the casket opened, in theory, the Barbie would fall off and wake me up. I use to get in trouble for putting toys on the casket.

Over the years the funeral home was eventually remodeled so that the family quarters were more separated from the funeral home part.

Anyway, I just don’t do horror movies because I spent a lot of my childhood being terrified!

We did get use to it after a while. In fact, on my way to bed I would stop off and look at the person on display in the funeral parlor because I usually knew them. Thankfully, they were usually elderly.

You know the movie My Girl? That was my sister. She was born after moving in and she use to talk to my step dad while he was embalming the body. Now as an adult she is a raging hypochondriac.

The horror movies that always stick out to me is the Evil Dead triology. Now, the first 2 are ridiculously gorey…too much for me. One of them has a woman get impaled by a tree in the last place you’d want to get impaled by a tree, there’s the famous cut off his own hand scene with Bruce Campbell, and just a lot of blood and gore.

But the 3rd installment, Army of Darkness, is some of the most hysterical, cheesy “horror” ever made. In college, we used to rent the $.99 cent VHS movies, always bad horror, and do our own version of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Until we got to Army of Darkness, which was so awesome it was hard to make fun of. There isn’t much gore at all in AoD, it’s mostly comedy, and it has Bruce Campbell at his absolute, chew the scenery (and I mean this in the best possible way) best.

Seriously? what about The Exorcist. I still can’t watch it a second time. Also a little known true story, “the town that dreaded sundown”. Not specific Halloween movies, but scary as all hades known the less!

I’m sure most of you are too young to remember, but there was nothing like the original Dark Shadows. We all raced home every day after school to catch it. It will be well worth it if you can find a DVD; Johnny Depp can’t hold a candle to Jonathan Frid who was the original Barnabas.

My friends and I ran from the bus stop every weekday to get home in time to hear the theme song start. And all the girls nagged their moms for oval onyx rings, to be worn on the index finger! I knew one girl who had one–lucky!

There is a Katie Hudson movie called The Skeleton Key, that is absolutely terrifying. Not exactly Halloween but just thinking about it freaks me out. Loved the Tim Burton Dark Shadows! As a kid of the 70’s, it was just so appealing and fun! Anything Alfred Hitchcock.

I didn’t see “Dark Secret of Harvest Home” based on the novel by Thomas Tryon. The New England small town setting combined with Bette Davis at her best makes for a truly eerie and unsettling motion picture. I watched it as a teen in the 1980’s and I remember it vividly to this day.

I will second the Arsenic and Old Lace vote. That is classic Halloween as interpreted by Cary Grant. It is hilariously funny and really sweet in parts — one of my very favorite movies of all time. The older women play their parts to perfection and Grant gets all the opportunities you could want for his shocked/horrified face and his comedic turns. Not really all that creepy, but it is a little suspenseful.

And I know Hitchcock was mentioned, but I would like to put in a vote for Rear Window specifically. It’s not so much Halloween as just the creepy situations that you can find yourself in day by day.

Do you know when kids are freshman in college and they go to the poster sale they have on campus around orientation? And all the kids buy posters of The Scream, or Gustav Klimt prints, or whatever picture of the shirtless hunk holding a kitten is in vogue that year? Just about any dorm room coast to coast will have these posters.

Rocky Horror feels that way to me. A lot of gays are really into it…along with the heavier-set girls in high school who’d hang around the gay guys or be in drama club. Dressing up as the characters and going to midnight screenings used to be a big thing. Drew Carey had an episode on it. Glee has done it.

It’s how straight people seem to first experience drag.

I’ve never liked it, though.

Except for ONE song…”There’s a light”…because in the movie Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostweit (sp?) are holding a Cleveland Plain Dealer over their heads in the rain…and that was my hometown growing up.

Speaking of which…I can remember being about 13 or so and my parents took me to the movies. This is in the late 80s. I remember seeing “Rocky Horror” listed but it only played really late. My parents didn’t like answering questions and my dad would either get angry at me for talking or would tell me some sarcastic story that was not true instead of just giving me an answer (he was a real jerk, always, to me).

So I puzzled over what “Rocky Horror” was. Was it a Rocky movie I had not seen? Like with Stallone? Or was it Rocky fighting Jason and Freddy and Michael Meyers?

I was fascinated for YEARS about this and then in high school one time I mentioned it and some friends and I went to see it and we were all so disappointed. We really wanted to see Stallone beating up Jason. Instead we got bad drag and obnoxious people from the 70s.

The scariest movie I have ever seen is “The Innocents” with Deborah Kerr – psycholgical thriller with children who are channeling ghosts of adult lovers. No blood, gore, sex, bad words – just intense scariness. If you like a psychological mind blasting eerie scary film – this is it!!!

Monster Squad is out on Blu Ray and is a total Gem. My son fell in love with it when he was nine and it’s still a regular watch at our house…plus it has one of the most badass scenes ever filmed when Horace takes out the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Since Halloween’s already been mentioned (but I’ll only watch the 1st one! the rest are junk), I’ll add in the first Pirates of the Caribbean, zombies, cursed pirates and a sneaky bit after the credits are done.

Oh, and Kevin, whenever I see Die Hard, I always hear “yippee-kayay” (well you know the rest) to Alan Rickman (Severus Snape). Totally LOVE that movie.

As a child, Halloween was my favorite holiday, complete with making paper decorations at school and closely supervised trick or treating. As a teenager, my family would build bonfires over which we would roast hot dogs and marshmallows and tell ghost stories and local lore of the legend of the Bell Witch in Adams, Tennessee. As an adult in my mid-thirties, I attended a costume party and discovered the odd power in fanning the flame of fascination men felt in flirting with a lady they couldn’t identify, but knew they should know.

for children, I recommend a one hour program The History Channel ran every Halloween for four or five years, The Haunted History of Halloween. It’s now available at Amazon.

For adults, I recommend a BBC mini-series, The Green Man, broadcast by A&E Television Networks every year around Halloween in the late 1990s. It is based on Sir Kingsley Amis’ book of the same name. If you like tales of the supernatural, as well as history, this may become an annual tradition in your home.

“The Green Man motif has many variations. Found in many cultures around the world, the Green Man is often related to natural vegetative deities springing up in different cultures throughout the ages. Primarily it is interpreted as a symbol of rebirth, or “renaissance”, representing the cycle of growth each spring. “. Per Wikipedia

It is available on VHS, as the UK DVD which may not play on US DVD players. Of course, if you are technically skilled, you could buy the VHS and transfer to DVD format.

Albert Finney plays the host of a 14th century mansion converted to an Inn and restaurant, called The Green Man, who regales his customers with tales of ancient hauntings. When he actually reports seeing strange spirits, his doctor recommends cutting back on the spirits he’s imbibing. His latest seduction is beset by increasingly frequent supernatural sightings of Dr Underhill, a previous resident of the house. Research at nearby Cambridge University fleshes out, so to speak, why the wraith of Dr Underhill appears and what he wants.

The characters dig up underhill’s plot in the cemetary, battle erotic desires from the grave and ask the local vicar to perform an exorcism.

Great movie list, and I’m totally with you when it comes to keeping Halloween sweet or sexy. I usually spend the evening watching movies with a friend I work with at DISH and her kids (after they go trick or treating, of course), so we’re all about keeping things light. We were thinking about renting a few movies from my Blockbuster @Home account to watch with the kids this year. They have a ton of titles to choose from, so there are plenty of movies that are appropriate for the kids, including a few from your list. Alvin & the Chipmunks Meet the Wolfman might have to be our top choice. It looks really cute.